


Evening Routine.

by misswritingobsessed



Category: Bodyguard (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Family, Future Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 06:50:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18244589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misswritingobsessed/pseuds/misswritingobsessed
Summary: A look at how Julia's evening routine has changed over the years.





	Evening Routine.

**Author's Note:**

> The fact that this document is 1600 words makes me so happy. 
> 
> I don't really know how I feel about this one, so I am letting you all be the judge. I am very sorry if it's awful!

2018.

It’s not that Julia enjoyed the loneliness on an evening, in fact she hated it, she hated how quiet her flat was, how dead and cold it felt, she didn’t enjoy it at all, but she had become used to it.

Used to not having anyone around, used to paying the electric bill and TV licence simply because it served as background noise and company at midnight when she was only halfway through her red box.

Julia wondered if it would change at any point, wondered if at some point she would reconnect with old friends, and have them come for dinner, if she’d find someone who loved her and accepted the job she did and the lifestyle that came with it. She wondered if maybe something would happen, and she would learn to enjoy the quiet and being on her own.

After boarding school and then law school, she was happy to be on her own, happy to come and go as she pleased, happy to not have her sleep interrupted by some drunk flat mate who clearly didn’t take their law degree as seriously as Julia did. But just as the loneliness got too much, she met Roger, of course, it ended in tears, but in the beginning it was good, she loved him, her loved her, both of them understanding that law and politics called for early mornings and all-nighters, days of not having a sit down meal and five minute phone calls, but even so, it was someone to come home to.

Julia almost hated herself for missing him. She combated it by telling herself she didn’t miss her ex-husband – which she didn’t – she just missed the company, having someone there, even if all they did was sit in silence. She often wondered if that’s why it took them so long to divorce, there was no longer any love there, but neither of them wanted to be lonely.

Julia was used to it now, though. No one being there to greet her, no one else to cook for, no more petty arguments about who forgot to unload the dishwasher. She was alone, and while she was used to it, she didn’t like it, she wanted it to change.

But she was a woman in politics, she had power, a voice, her own opinions, and all of that, she had come to realise, did not make good ‘partner’ material.

And while she wasn’t willing to give up her career to spend the limited time in her flat with someone, she told herself she would carry on paying her TV licence and continue to make peace with the loneliness she felt at midnight.

So, for now her evening routine stayed the same – she would work until she could no longer focus on the words in front of her, she would brush her teeth, go through a skin care routine, get into bed, work some more on her phone, and wait for the alarm to sound the next morning.

 

2019.

Julia was in two minds about having another person in her flat. She wanted someone there. She wanted that, to feel less alone, to speak to someone at midnight, to feel less lonely. But she was used to the loneliness, she was used to being the only one walking around her flat at three in the morning, she was used to her own company.

She assumed that was why she was in two minds. She so badly wanted someone there, someone who understood the hours she worked, someone who would be waiting for her in bed regardless of those hours, but at the same it had been so long. She was new to it all, or at least that’s how it felt. She wasn’t used to having someone cooking her dinner when she walked in, or having someone ask her how her day was, or leaving in a morning and hearing the faint sounds of ‘see you later,’.

It also made her want to be lonely, despite knowing that when she was alone, it was an awful feeling. She no longer wanted that feeling to engulf her in the small hours, but she wasn’t sure she wanted his constant presence – no matter how good he made her feel, in both a physical and mental sense.

Julia couldn’t make herself comfortable just yet. She knew this phase would end and they would fall into some kind of routine. That, she thought, was where it would either make or break them.

As she tried to let herself go, she wondered what he thought of her. What he thought of her belongings. Now everything was so much more personal, now that she openly wanted him in her flat, now that he was able to look at things with a careful eye, not walking around sticking to a time frame.  

He took his time, looking at the various artwork, fancy vases that had no flowers, his eyes slowly glancing over at the few pictures she had on different bookcases.

She wasn’t the most personal person. Her childhood was filled with education and expensive holidays, her early adulthood consisted of a disaster marriage and work. They were not things she wanted on display.

Her evening routine remained the same for the most part. Her work still took over most of the night, but instead he would be next to her, watching the TV, offering her more wine when her glass was getting empty. She would always make a point to do her skin care routine, and occasionally when she got into bed, she would focus on him instead of her phone.

She imagined it would change in time. But right now, it was the same, she just has someone next to her while she tried to fix the country, every so often letting him distract her enough that she dreaded the morning alarm in a way she hadn’t before. Every so often he could persuade her to go to bed earlier, that work could wait.

 

2020.

Her flat was no longer her home. Instead a house sat to the side of her while she finished her phone call in the back of her ministerial car.

Julia didn’t like it at first, it all felt too big, she often wondered what she would fill the space with if it was just her. Her friends had joked she had become a minimalist overnight, but that all changed. Now, she knew walking into her home, she would be hit with the smell of dinner, the walls would hold pictures of smiling faces, and coloured felt tips scribbled onto a4 sheets of paper.

It wasn’t the life she had planned for herself, nor the life she was sure she deserved, it was how things were, and she found herself almost happy and at peace with it, even if at times she craved her old flat, her time alone, her time wondering around listening to the dull tone of the TV at three in the morning.

She found happiness in the chaos that was a child’s school day, happiness in the balancing act that was getting two children, to two separate clubs’ miles apart at the same time. Birthday parties, friends for dinner, homework, reading bedtime, forgotten stuffed toys, all of it, despite not being the life Julia had thought she would be living at 43, it brought her a sense of happiness.

Her phone call finished, but she didn’t want to get out of the car, instead, she remained in the back seat, looking up at the collection of bricks and glass that made up her house, a light on in every window, every so often a shadow proving that someone was home.

She should have been home. She should have been home well over an hour ago, but today was one of those days were everything went wrong, where things got missed and messed up, where staff got shouted at, it would have been one of those days, that a few years ago, Julia would have been happy enough to go back to her empty flat, refuse to switch on the lights, and simply drink her wine, the only company being the darkness and the occasional voice of the protection officer stationed outside greeting other residence of the building.

Instead, she was looking up at the home she shared with a man and his two children. A house that since a nasty court battle was never quiet. Julia wondered how different life would be had the house she was looking at, not become the permeant home to a brunette girl wise beyond her years and young boy with a heart of gold.

She pushed herself out of the car, she was late.

She thought about it as she pushed open the front door, how different her evening was now. Now, she would go inside, her work would be forgotten about until the next morning, the only thing remaining in her evening routine from years ago being her skin care.

 

2025.

She would always leave politics one day. It was never going to be forever.

Did she picture it differently? Yes. Did you see herself getting voted out rather than resigning? Yes.

But things change.

The house she lived in wasn’t Downing Street, and she didn’t want it to be.

It was home. A home where four people lived, where four people loved each other despite the odds.

It was a house where Julia’s evening routine no longer consisted of work.

Instead, it was hugs, kisses, bedtimes stories, and a love that would last a life time.

**Author's Note:**

> Praying it wasn't awful!


End file.
